The present invention relates to industrial process control and measurement. More specifically, the present invention relates to a handheld field maintenance tool for use in industrial process control and measurement installations.
Field maintenance tools are known. Such tools are highly useful in the process control and measurement industry to allow operators to conveniently communicate with and/or interrogate field devices in a given process installation. Examples of such process installations include petroleum, pharmaceutical, chemical, pulp and other processing installations. In such installations, the process control and measurement network may include tens or even hundreds of various field devices which periodically require maintenance to ensure that such devices are functioning properly and/or calibrated. Moreover, when one or more errors in the process control and measurement installation are detected, the use of an intrinsically safe handheld field maintenance tool allows technicians to quickly diagnose such errors in the field.
One such tool is sold under the trade designation Model 275 HART® Communicator available from Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc., of Eden Prairie, Minn. HART® is a registered trademark of the HART® Communication Foundation. The Model 275 provides a host of important functions and capabilities and generally allows highly effective field maintenance.
The Model 275 HART® Communicator can provide new functions and/or communication with new field devices by updating its software. When the software is updated, it is important to ensure that with each new update, that the new version of software will continue to function with all field devices with which the previous version was compatible. Testing the new software to ensure such compatibility is termed regression testing. One way in which this regression testing is performed, is by using scripts. Scripts allow behavior of the new software to be observed in response to artificial stimulus such as field device inputs and outputs and/or process communication inputs and outputs without the actual presence required of field devices or even a process communication loop. As used herein, “script” is intended to mean a data structure relative to one or more of tool inputs, tool outputs, process communication inputs, process communication outputs, or any combination thereof. It is known to use such scripts to verify new releases of the software that runs on the Model 275.
Scripts are currently generated on a simulator and played back via a customized tool (using custom hardware such as a tool interface coupled to a general purpose computer via a specialized peripheral card resident within the computer) to verify the software. This approach to regression testing has proved effective in the past. However, as handheld field maintenance tools evolve, more effective use of scripts can provide not only more effective software testing, but a valuable asset for a field maintenance technician.